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Weekly App Store Picks: Aug. 22, 2009

Written on August 22, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 5 people have commented

As we wave goodbye to the week that was, it’s time to take a look at the latest iPhone recommendations from the App Store.
This week I’ve been looking at Comics, Coat Hangr, Coins and Album Shuffle.
Comics ($0.99)
It was released back in June and yet, due to the deluge of apps I deal with on a [...]

Rumor Has It: Apple Event Sept. 9; Music to Take Center Stage

Written on August 18, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 12 people have commented

Details regarding the fast-approaching Apple iPod event in September are beginning to firm up, as is the norm when we draw closer to the anticipated date of these kinds of Cupertino media circuses. By firm up, of course, I mean that various online sources appear to agree, but that’s often as close as we get [...]

Rumor Has It: Apple Working On New Media File Format

Written on August 10, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 28 people have commented

There is very little to get excited about when it comes to new media file formats, for the average person. Sure, they offer better compression, better quality, smaller file sizes, etc., but they also cause headaches, render hardware obsolete, and just generally inconvenience everyday computer users. Apple is reportedly working on its own new format, [...]

App Review: Rolando 2 — Roll On the Second Coming

Written on July 09, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 3 people have commented

Rolando 2 is the sequel to Rolando, a game which proved that the iPhone can compete with Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS in the handheld console wars.
Just over a year after opening, the App Store is coming into its own. Indeed, there’s the dodgy dirge of novelty joke apps, but at the other end of [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: July 4, 2009

Written on July 04, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 9 people have commented

It’s that time of the week — when we welcome you to the weekend with a selection of the freshest picks for the iPhone from the App Store.
Hold your horses, though, because before we dive headfirst into a glorious ocean of iPhone apps, I’ve got a roundup of notable Apple news from the past seven [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: June 27, 2009

Written on June 27, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 4 people have commented

It’s the weekend, people, so prime your downloading finger and get ready to make good use of it as I guide you through the latest picks from the App Store.
Thanks to the release of OS 3.0 and the iPhone 3GS, there’s been a constant stream of Apple happenings. Before we get to the apps, let’s [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: June 13, 2009

Written on June 13, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 5 people have commented

Your head might be spinning from the torrent of Apple happenings at WWDC this week, but fear not, I’ve got the cure: fresh picks from the App Store.
It’s been an exciting week for TheAppleBlog, with our correspondents posting live from WWDC in San Jose; we’ve been covering the event from all angles. Before we look [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: May 30, 2009

Written on May 30, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 7 people have commented

Just when you thought the weekend couldn’t get any better, along comes a selection of the freshest picks from the App Store.
This week I’ve selected four playful picks for you to toy with over the weekend. It’s not all fun and games, though, as before we get to the apps, I’ve got a roundup of [...]

Amazon, iTunes, Other? Where Do You Buy Your Digital Music?

Written on May 20, 2009 by Tom Reestman and 23 people have commented

I know some people who’ve settled on one source for digital music purchases. (I also have a friend who buys CDs and rips them himself, but that’s another topic.) This made me wonder what the buying habits of our readers are. I’m curious as to how many people pretty much limit themselves to one source [...]

TuneUp Update Brings New Features for Obsessive-Compulsive iTunes Users

Written on May 19, 2009 by Jenny Kortina and 4 people have commented

iTunes cleanup software TuneUp has been undergoing some exciting changes. Last week, TuneUp launched a new UI, and today the company is announcing the availability of the software at Apple Store retail locations in the U.S. Over 250 Apple Stores will now offer a retail-packaged version of TuneUp for $29.95.
I had a chance to review [...]

Performing Live: London’s iPhone Orchestra

Written on May 14, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 5 people have commented

Over in London, the experimental electronic music scene is positively flourishing.
Having lived in the UK’s capital city for the latter part of 2008, I discovered a bubbling sonic subculture — a community of creatives hijacking ice cream vans, reappropriating medical EPGs, and hacking instruments out of scraps of junk, all for the purposes of audio [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: May 2, 2009

Written on May 02, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 5 people have commented

Who’s that knockin’ at your door? Why it’s none other than the freshest pickings from the App Store, joined by a smattering of Apple news.
Before we get stuck in to this week’s iPhone picks and recommendations from the App Store, let’s shift our focus for a moment and have a quick recap on what went [...]

Simplify Music 2.0 Does What iTunes and iPhone Should Do Natively

Written on April 30, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

Around when I first got my iPhone, I used to use Simplify Media to really wow anyone who cared to listen to me gloat about my new toy. The app, if you’ve never heard of it, allows you to stream your home iTunes library from any computer with the desktop client installed directly to your [...]

App Review: Leaf Trombone: World Stage — Like American Idol But With Leaves

Written on April 17, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 6 people have commented

Learn to play the leaf trombone, perform your repertoire before a global audience, and prepare to be judged.
Since the App Store’s launch last year, Smule has been steadily building an impressive portfolio of sound-based social apps for the iPhone. With Dr. Ge Wang — an assistant professor in Music and Acoustics — at the helm, [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: April 11, 2009

Written on April 11, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 5 people have commented

It’s time for the very apex of everyone’s Easter weekend, the all important revealing of this week’s picks from the App Store.
But it’s not all about the latest fresh pickings from the App Store, before we get in to all that, I’ve collated the week’s news in handy bite-size form — think of it as [...]

Nine Inch Nails iPhone App to Resemble Specialized Twitter

Written on April 09, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 5 people have commented

There are a lot of music apps available for the iPhone. What do most of them have in common? Actually the question is, what don’t most of these apps have in common? Artist and musician apps in particular seem mostly to be cut from the same mold, offering very little in the way of originality, [...]

Spiral Frog: RIP

Written on March 20, 2009 by Tom Reestman and 30 people have commented

And so ends the life of another would-be iTunes competitor.
Spiral Frog, a Universal-backed subscription music catastrophe, has apparently called it quits. Though the service was “free” (using an ad-supported model), it still suffered from the five things that pretty much all subscription-based music models share:

A requirement for recurring activity
Limited content
Risk of losing music
Strict usage controls
Does [...]

Songbird Adds 7Digital Music Store Integration, Gains Ground on iTunes

Written on March 18, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 7 people have commented

The Mozilla foundation’s alternative media manager program, Songbird, recently got a nice new addition that brings its functionality even closer to that of iTunes, the Apple monopoly-holder it seeks to unseat. That addition is the ability to buy music from directly within the program, just like you can do with the iTunes store. You’ll be [...]

App Review: Tap Tap Revenge 2 — New Tunes and Achey Fingers

Written on March 03, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 32 people have commented

Taking the iPhone’s potential even further, Tapulous is here to show us how games can play good and sound awesome.
The Tap Tap Revenge series has come a long way since its humble beginnings almost two years back. Indeed, back in September ‘07, indie developer Nate True spent a couple of days designing the game’s first [...]

doubleTwist Takes Jab at iTunes Tyranny

Written on February 26, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 7 people have commented

Look out iTunes, there’s a brand new media manager in town, in the form of a public beta just released for OS X. The program is called doubleTwist, and it’s the brainchild of anti-DRM crusader “DVD” Jon Johansen.
Ars Technica had a look at it in length, and it seems to be fairly promising. The idea [...]